Biden
Joe Biden
From NBC's Mark Murray Biden's critical remarks on McCain today with this past clip of Biden on Jon Stewart...
From NBC's Mark Murray From an email from his campaign: "Sen.
Biden is about to speak at the campaign's caucus night rally and withdraw from the race."
From NBC's Mark Murray DES MOINES, Iowa -- Four years ago, this reporter covered a longtime Democratic US senator from the Northeast named Joe -- Lieberman -- as he knocked on doors a day or two before the New Hampshire primary. Supporters and aides chanted, "Go, Joe, go" as he moved from house to house.
There was just one catch, though: From memory, the number of TV cameras and press was larger than the Lieberman supporters following their candidate, and they had a hard time finding Lieberman voters who would come to the door.
Today, another longtime Democratic senator from the Northeast named Joe -- Biden --who's running in the middle of the pack of his party's presidential field walked into to a popular downtown brewpub here, and the place was packed with a few hundred supporters. (The campaign later put the number at more than 500.)
"We want Joe!" the crowd chanted as the candidate entered the restaurant. "We want Joe! We want Joe!"
"What a great crowd. God love ya," Biden told the audience. "Good morning, Des Moines. Holy mackerel!" He then joked that if someone had told his grandfather that -- many years later -- his grandson, on New Years Day, would be in a bar packed with people who were all sober, he would have replied that that person was crazy.
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From NBC’s Domenico Montanaro , electable? Not so much, according to a blistering memo out this afternoon from Biden Communications Director Larry Rasky.
“[T]he evidence that Edwards is more electable is at best thin and is probably misleading,” Rasky writes in the memo, which reads more like it is straight out of the RNC's research shop. “The first question mark is that Edwards was unlikely to hold onto to his North Carolina Senate seat in 2003 when he decided not to run for re-election. In short, if John Edwards is so electable, why couldn’t he be re-elected in his home state?”
He then hits Edwards for not carrying his home state as part of the Kerry -Edwards 2004 presidential ticket, and that they even lost Edwards’ home county.
“At the end of the day, despite repeated assurances, Kerry-Edwards also failed to win a single southern state,” Rasky writes. “So it’s understandable that this time around, even John Edwards’s own people are acknowledging his vulnerability: Rob Tully, a former state party chairman and Edwards backer, said “if he doesn't win Iowa or come very close this time, ‘we're done.’”
Rasky even writes, “[T]here are serious doubts about Edwards’ message” before pivoting to why he thinks Biden is more electable. He claims Biden “has set a 15-18 red state strategy” and that “Sen. Biden’s victories have also come during times of strong Republican presence in the Delaware.”
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From NBC/NJ’s Carrie Dann DES MOINES, Iowa -- If there's a safe space between politics and policy, Biden stayed in it until the last question of the day. A somber Biden appeared this morning at a hastily assembled press conference to address the assassination of Pakistani political figure Benazir Bhutto .
Calling her death "a genuine tragedy," the senator called for a transparent investigation into the attack and said that he had twice asked Pakistan's president to provide better protection to the slain Bhutto.
"This fall," he told reporters, "I twice urged President Musharraf to provide her with better security." He added, “The failure to protect Mrs. Bhutto raises a lot of hard questions for the government and the security services that have to be answered.”
Asked if his statement implied that Musharraf's government may have been negligent or even complicit in Bhutto's assassination, Biden responded that he cannot comment on any blame to be laid at the feet of the Pakistani government without knowing all the facts of the attack.
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From NBC's Domenico Montanaro Here's a wrap up of the candidates' statements not mentioned on First Read so far from Obama , Clinton , McCain and Kucinich and as well as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg :
OBAMA: "I am shocked and saddened by the death of Benazir Bhutto in this terrorist atrocity. She was a respected and resilient advocate for the democratic aspirations of the Pakistani people. We join with them in mourning her loss, and stand with them in their quest for democracy and against the terrorists who threaten the common security of the world."
CLINTON: "I am profoundly saddened and outraged by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a leader of tremendous political and personal courage. I came to know Mrs. Bhutto over many years, during her tenures as Prime Minister and during her years in exile. Mrs. Bhutto's concern for her country, and her family, propelled her to risk her life on behalf of the Pakistani people. She returned to Pakistan to fight for democracy despite threats and previous attempts on her life and now she has made the ultimate sacrifice. Her death is a tragedy for her country and a terrible reminder of the work that remains to bring peace, stability, and hope to regions of the globe too often paralyzed by fear, hatred, and violence.
*** UPDATE *** Edwards, Richardson, Biden and Huckabee weigh in
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From NBC’s Samantha Mehrotra, Liberty Matias, Lindsay Garfield Biden addressed the DNC today, trumpeting his foreign policy expertise and his ability to lead the country out of Iraq. Despite looming obstacles, he promised results and a definitive exit strategy. “Iraq is like a boulder in the middle of the road -- it denies us the credibility to lead the world and the flexibility to solve our problems here at home,” he said, later adding that he will end the war on the first day of his presidency.
The Democratic contender also pledged to restore moral authority in Washington. He argued that Republicans have often replaced morality with ideology, supporting policies that favor tax cuts to higher-income families and legislation that inhibits access to education.
If he becomes the Democratic nominee, Biden said, he looks forward to competing against his Republican opponents. “I cannot wait to debate Romney or Thompson, and I can hardly wait for Rudy… We will eat these guys alive -- on national security, on domestic security…”
In a sentimental closing, Biden said the election is about reconnecting with voters’ needs -- speaking to both their hearts as well as their mind.
From NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli Biden campaigning yesterday in New Hampshire, where he said that he would move to impeach Bush if he unilaterally attacks Iran.
QUESTIONER: “I have a great fear that say you’re elected as the nominee of the party. Next August sometime during the summer, Dick Cheney and George are going to bomb Iran."
BIDEN: "Legitimate concern."
QUESTIONER: "What can you do about it?”
BIDEN: “I am not one, who if you’ve observed me for some time, I am not one who’s engaged in excessive populist rhetoric. I’m not one that pits the rich against the poor. I’m not one who’s gone out there and made false threats against presidents about, and god love him he’s a great guy, I’m not Dennis Kucinich saying impeach everybody now. But let me tell you, I have written an extensive legal memorandum with the help of a group of legal scholars who are sort of a stable of people, the best-known constitutional scholars in America, because for 17 years I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
"I asked them to put together [for] me a draft, which I’m now literally riding between towns editing, that I want to make clear and submit to the Untied States Senate pointing out the president has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran. And I want to make it clear, I want it on the record, and I want to make it clear, if he does, as chairman of the foreign relations committee and former chair of the judiciary committee, I will move to impeach him."
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From Aswini Anburajan and Carrie Dann Clinton campaign since January to request an interview with the senator.
He finally heard back this past weekend, the day after a well publicized appearance by Obama in the region and a prominent story in the New York Times commending the Obama campaign's outreach to local weekly and daily newspapers, as also noted at The Rural Blog , of the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.
Referring to the phone call he received from the Clinton campaign as a "breakthrough," Beaudoin said that he found its timing to be "rather odd."
"The timing [of the interview] seems to be working in their favor,” Beaudoin said. “The New York Times piece gave Obama good press about how his people are handling weekly papers. She dropped in the polls recently… We've offered her front-page space for the past 10 months -- just like all the other candidates. It's always time constraints and one person gets the message and the other person doesn't get the message.”
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From NBC/NJ’s Carrie Dann Biden's new "
Joe is Right" ad features complimentary
quotes from six of the senator's seven rivals. The missing candidate is
Kucinich , whose peace platform doesn't leave a lot of room for agreement with the measured policies of the Foreign Relations chairman.
Kucinich noticed. And he's mad as hell.
Per a release issued by his campaign, "Deliberately - and revealingly - missing from the political cast of characters in Biden's approving/adoring love-fest among the Democratic candidates is Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich. …The Congressman has the utmost respect for Senator Biden and his years of service to the nation. He just happens to be wrong on some very major issues; and, if the other candidates agree with him, then they're wrong, too.
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